Reports of the latest Chinese Communist Party Plenum have made much of a drive by the leadership in Beijing to improve “the rule of law”. If that were the case, it would represent a major positive step in the process of change promised by the previous Plenum in November 2013. Establishing a strong, independent legal system is an essential step in enhancing the rights of individuals and providing a level playing field for companies and investors.
Boosting hopes that this may be on the leadership’s agenda, official Chinese media, along with some investment bank analysts and foreign media commentators, have hailed the Plenum as, in the words of one of the former, “a blueprint for the law of law”. This is playing with words.
As has been the case for more than 2,500 years, the view from the top in China is that the country needs rule by law – not rule of law. No doubt, Xi Jinping, the president, and his colleagues want the law to operate more effectively. But their aim is to make the system more responsive to the Party and its wishes, not to empower it in such a way that it can make the regime and its organs more accountable. Law is too important to be left to the courts. Ever since the First Emperor more than two millennia ago with his doctrine of Legalism, the use of law to keep the people in line is seen as an essential plank of top-down rule.